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Movie Info

RATING:

RELEASE:

August 10, 2001

TIME:

104 minutes

STARRING:

Nicole Kidman, Fionnula Flanagan,
Alakina Mann, James Bentley

DIRECTOR / WRITER:

Alejandro Amenbar

DISTRIBUTOR:

Dimension Films

GENRE:

Horror/Ghost Story

Please Note

In providing movie reviews on our site, CBN.com is not endorsing or recommending films we review. Our goal is to provide Christians with information about the latest movies, both the good and the bad, so that our readers may make an informed decision as to whether or not films are appropriate for them and their families.

MOVIE REVIEW

The Others

By Movieguide

CBN.com -- Of
all the different kinds of horror movies, ghost stories have always
been among the most problematic, usually because the filmmakers never
seem to take a Christian worldview toward the material. At least in
some Dracula movies, the monster is afraid of the Cross, the symbol
of Christ’s vicarious atonement for our sins.

The new ghost movie, The Others, doesn’t ignore Christian
beliefs. Far from it. Instead, its strong occult worldview eventually,
and overtly, attacks the Christian beliefs of its conflicted heroine,
Grace. The upshot of the movie’s worldview is that there is really
no Heaven or Hell and that the dead continue to live and can achieve
redemption for their sins on their own power and merit instead of Jesus
Christ’s. Thus, The Others explicitly rejects Christianity
and contains false religious notions about redemption and the afterlife.

In the story of the movie, Nicole Kidman plays Grace, a young woman
waiting for her beloved husband to return from World War II. Grace has
been raising her two young children alone in a cavernous Victorian mansion
on the secluded isle of Jersey between England and Normandy. Isolated
from the rest of the world, Grace is a fervent Christian, teaching her
faith to her children, who she says suffer from some terrible skin disease
that requires them to refrain from all forms of sunlight. Grace also
tells one child to ask forgiveness from "the Virgin" and describes a
vision of Eternal Damnation, or Hell, for sinful children, which she
calls "Limbo." (These statements obviously bear no relation to real
Christian beliefs, and I don’t think Roman Catholics believe such
things, even though many Roman Catholics often talk about the Virgin
Mary and sometimes mention the concept of "Limbo.")

When three mysterious new servants arrive to replace the ones that
inexplicably left, startling, supernatural events begin to unfold. Grace’s
daughter reveals that she has been communicating with unexplained ghosts
or poltergeists. At first, Grace is reluctant to believe in these frightening
apparitions, but the poltergeists eventually make their presence known
even to her. Who are these intruders, and why are they here? The movie’s
answer to these questions is what drives its anti-Christian occult worldview.

Because of its explicitly anti-Christian, occult worldview, The
Others is truly an abhorrent movie, despite its fine production
values and wonderful acting by Nicole Kidman as the mother, Fionnula
Flanagan as Mrs. Mills the mysterious housekeeper, and especially Alakina
Mann and James Bentley as the two children, Anne and Nicholas.

Statistics show that there are only about 14 million spiritists or
spiritualists in the whole world, compared to about two billion professing
Christians, but unsuspecting people looking for a scary story may be
lured by the advertising for The Others. Getting the word out
on the silly, anti-Christian worldview of The Others may help
prevent moviegoers from ever getting hooked by this kind of dangerous,
demonic material again.

The question is what can stop filmmakers from pursuing such financially
risky stories? Of course, donations to MOVIEGUIDE, its parent the Christian
Film & Television Commission Annual Awards Gala and our MOVIEGUIDE
Report to the Entertainment Industry can help us alert both them and
their financial bosses.

The previous reviews are a selected sample of informative reviews from
MOVIEGUIDE: A FAMILY GUIDE TO MOVIES AND ENTERTAINMENT, a syndicated
feature of Good News Communications, Inc. To subscribe to MOVIEGUIDE,
which includes a complete set of at least 10 reviews of the latest movies
as well as many informative articles, please visit their Web site at
http://www.movieguide.org/,
or write or call:

MOVIEGUIDE
P.O. Box 190010
Atlanta, GA 31119
(800) 899-6684

DISCLAIMER: "The publications that carry MOVIEGUIDE and the organizations
that distribute MOVIEGUIDE are not responsible for these reviews, nor
is MOVIEGUIDE responsible for the opinions and positions of those publications
and organizations."